The powerful hurricane, which weakened slightly to a Category 2 storm Tuesday morning, had churned for 15 hours at a glacial pace of just 1 mph and was locked at a standstill over the northern Bahamas. Its fixed position allowed it to clobber the island chain with sustained winds of up to 185 mph for nearly two full days after making landfall Sunday as a deadly Category 5 storm.

The storm is traveling sluggishly because atmospheric conditions that dictate its movement collapsed on Sunday night. Those steering currents are driven by the other players in the atmosphere that are larger than the hurricane, including high pressure and low pressure systems, troughs and the jet stream. (It's the wind blowing in relation to all of these that steers the weather.)

A high pressure ridge over the Atlantic that was moving Dorian over the weekend calmed completely, and that weakness in the ridge on Monday caused Dorian to stall.

Hurricane Dorian, Now Category 2, Still Devastating Bahamas

Hurricane Dorian has been downgraded to a Category 2 storm as it lingers over the Bahamas.